I love the photo of Isabelle Huppert. She looks great, even as she looks older than her age. She's 57, and it would be easy to believe that she's 67 or even older, but she still seems youthful, because of the expression and life in her face. The contrast is the American Ellen Barkin, looking smoothly dead-faced at 56.

Actresses and models all smoke. To address the ravages to the skin, they either need the desperate "work" done by Barkin or Jackson, or they get prematurely wrinkly like Huppert. Given the choice, I'd prefer Huppert, she is lovely, but you can see a pack a day on her face.

Yeah, it helps keep the weight off, apparently essential to be on TV. But it's not worth it.

Smoking among the frequently photographed is like steroids for athletes. It's a slippery slope of wanting to keep up with the competition, and everyone's doing it. But it would be better if it could stop.

American actresses apparently feel they must always look 25. They are the example we see for face lifts. My friends who've had multiple procedures don't aim that low. They want to look good, not young. All look like fabulous women of uncertain age. Or should I say of "a certain age?"

My 75-year-old mother has fewer wrinkles than Isabelle Huppert, as do you, Ann. She's managed to stay slim and she has an expensive haircut. Otherwise she looks like hell. Which says something about the efficacy of the French state-sponsored spa "cures."

Surely there's a happy medium somewhere between the now gargoyle-like Kate Jackson and Huppert. Like Andie MacDowell or Helen Mirren, who has seven years on Huppert but looks much much better.

You know, that article is absurd. The writer goes into great detail about the weird spa rituals and hordes of creams every French woman has to care for her skin, and then at the end says French aging is a matter of "mind over makeup."

Whaaaa? These women sound like they just obsess over their appearance nonstop. 15-and 19-year olds using wrinkle cream?Doesn't sound any healthier than our women who demand botox or crazy diets.

But it's French, so of course it appeals to the truly 'sophisticated.' What bosh.

NYT chick writers have some weird self-loathing about being American and female that, apparently, can be made better by groveling before French chicks. Always, always, the cited examples of superior French aging are women who have been beautiful at every stage of their lives. The real secret to aging well is to have good genes. Not only would this make for an awfully short article, but it's inherently unfair. Perhaps fluffy, evidence-free pieces (government-subsidized spa treatments, really?) like this are designed to give the idea that somehow those ingenious Frenchies have found a way to distribute the genetic wealth.

Personally, I think the foxiness of mature French ladies is due to a sense of greater dignity. They don't have that terrified look that aging American beauties have. I'd be okay with importing that aspect of French culture.

You should use something on your skin at 15 to 19. Of course, sunscreen is even more effective. But, there isn't a cream on the planet that will eliminate wrinkles. Care for your skin before it suffers.

I haven't spent a ton of time in France, but one thing I've noticed there is that French women dress their age. You know the overtanned, overteased, junior clothes department clad older women you see on occasion in America (and even here in Germany)...? Haven't seen her in France.

It seems that beauty is revered over youth in France, and that enables women to accept their age "with grace". You could make the argument that everyone is young once but only some are beautiful. So, maybe it's a healthier approach, maybe it's not. I don't know.

Oh, Rubbish. Just about everything I've seen here is rubbish. There isn't a woman over the age of 30 who doesn't look at her first wrinkle, the initial deepening of that nasolabial fold with horror -- it's your very own memento mori message, and all that nonsense about aging gracefully is just that: nonsense. Every last one of you hypocrites nattering on about Huppert would, if she were a hooker accosting you on the street, shudder appalled and make horrified comments to your buddies about delusional drug addicts needing to be committed for their own good. Most Eurototty spends inconceivable amounts of time and money on those fabulous features -- where do you think all those fabled Swiss and French (and Oriental) plastic surgery clinics got their reputations? It's the exceptions, like Huppert and Bardot, that are so remarkable. (Don't tell me Sofia Loren does it just on olive oil alone -- make a cat laugh, that would.) Every woman who's watched her husband/boyfriend/SO checking out the 20-something talent on the street and looked at time and gravity etched in her face knows character loses out to ... well, let's just say that youth and a firm fundament tend to triumph over crows' feet and character. There's a reason the young trophy wife is a symbolic cliche.

The worst thing about plastic surgery is that most of the product looks so remarkably false and appallingly bad for the astounding amounts of money spent, regardless of the sex of the patient: consider Steve Martin, or Burt Reynolds. The truest comment made here is that your last best hope is genetic. If you have good bones, thick skin and a reasonable diet (some extra fat), and given superior medical maintenance,you may keep some of your old beauty into senescence, as did Cary Grant. Without all of that: Fail.

A few minutes ago I looked into my wife's face, sunburned and wrinkled like old Morocco leather.

Most of the day we work outside, often together, growing good food. The true beauty, the love, puts to shame anything that could ever arise from the "cosmetic" medicine world.

We have a picture of her great grandmother -- a Hungarian as is she -- at 93. That aged face is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, for beauty is far more than mere pulchritude.

It all brings to mind Stan Rogers' old song, 'Lies.'

===========================

At last the kids are gone now for the dayShe reaches for the coffee as the school bus pulls awayAnother day to tend the house and planFor Friday at the Legion when she's dancing with her man ...

Sure was a bitter winter, but Friday will be fineAnd maybe last year's Easter dress will serve her one more timeShe'd pass for twenty-nine but for her eyesBut Winter lines are telling wicked lies

chorusAll lies.... All those lines, they're telling wicked liesToo many lines there in that faceToo many to erase or to disguiseThey must be telling lies

Is this the face that won for her the manWhose amazed and clumsy fingers slipped that ring upon her handNo need to search that mirror for the yearsThe menace in their message shouts across the blur of tears

So is this beauty's finish? Like Rodin's "Belle Heaulmiere"?The pretty maiden trapped inside the ranch wife's toil and careWell, after seven kids, that's no surpriseBut why cannot the mirror tell her lies?

Chorus

Now she shakes off the bitter web she woveTurns and puts the mirror gently face down by the stoveShe gathers up her apron in her handPours a cup of coffee, drips Carnation from the can

And thinks ahead to Friday, 'cause Friday will be fineWhen she'll look up in that weathered face that loves hers line for lineTo see the maiden shining in his eyesAnd laugh at how the mirror tells her lies

Come on, tradtionalguy. It cuts both ways. Back in high school it seemed the most beautiful girls were dating college guys. They saw older men as more capable providers. Guys are attracted to younger women because they’re more fertile. Can’t fight biology, nor should we try. 90% of the positive things I’ve done in life were efforts to get my female peers to notice me. The juvenile men who fancy themselves “Cougar Hunters” may make a few over-the-hill ladies feel better about their sexuality. But they’re pissing away their youth.

It’s fair to say the French put more emphasis on style. Here in The States, fashion is seen as vain & pretentious. Still, I’m just beginning to tire of flip flops, jeans & baseball caps. Finished reading Alan Flusser’s “Dressing The Man” and came away surprised that clothing is designed to make us look less ugly. And it works! Maybe if we put more emphasis on clothing, we’d stop butchering ourselves with surgery.

Are we sure this isn't just because their state medical system doesn't provide plastic surgery and if the state ain't paying, we ain't getting it?

It looks to me like Barkin is just not yet healed from a recent peel or dermabrasion. Modern plastic surgery is getting pretty good, at least for women. They could have shown examples that proved the exact opposite case.

I lived in France, off and on, for 20 years and French women are as stupid as women anywhere: they dress like sluts, spend their time and money in (worthless) spas, going to (worthless) quacks, and basically making fuck-all of their lives like women everywhere. Their (unwavering because it's so limited) diets are boring and nothing special, their sense of fashion (compared to the average black American) is laughable, and - if they were anything special to be admired - we'd see so many examples of it we'd look at nothing else.

The whole mental outlook of the French-worshipping American assholes is bogus:

The French are losers.

Why so few, here, can accept that - based on the real-world evidence - stumps me. I honestly don't get it.

There's nothing as beautiful as a woman (not a girl: a woman) who's comfortable in her own unadorned skin.

Even though she's a bit younger than the other women mentioned; I'm surprised that no one mentioned Jamie Colby. Every time I see her on Fox I marvel that she can move her lips while the rest of her face remains perfectly still.

I saw her on a show recently with her husband. He has that wrinkled, emaciated marathoner's look while her face is as tight as a drum. The contrast could not have been more stark.

I can't explain what I find creepy about Ellen Barkin's look. It's probably an uncanny valley issue. Or maybe plastic surgery doesn't age well. Whatever. I like the look of confidence on an older woman, and I suspect that confident women eschew plastic surgery.

Old joke: What's the difference between an expensive wig and a cheap wig? An expensive wig looks like an expensive wig and a cheap wig looks like a cheap wig. But despite the old joke, some men really do get away with wearing a wig. Maybe it the shape of their skull or something, but it looks natural...Perhaps some faces absorb plastic surgery better than others. Barbara Walters probably has had work done, but her face always looked expressive and natural. She never od'ed on the procedures. A woman can use plastic surgery to look better than her age, but not younger than her age......Liv Ulmann said that when she was a child she always loved the wrinkles on her grandmother's face. For that reason, she decided to forgo plastic surgery. At a certain age isn't it more comfortable to look kindly and companionable than hot and desirable.

I would have to respectfully disagree about Huppert.I think we forget what 57 looks like in our culture precisely because of all the manufactured youth in our culture.I think she looks fabulous for 57- aging youthfully and gracefully.Very beautiful still.